A Christian Testimony on Music & Art
by Bert Polman
August 2003

My life as a musicologist and a university teacher of music and interdisciplinary arts courses is shaped by a Christian world-view (i.e., a comprehensive set of fundamental beliefs) which includes the following:

CREATION

I believe that the universe was created through God's word and wisdom and is continually upheld and ruled through God's providence and lordship; and that this universe manifests an order and exhibits an ongoing, dynamic development.

I believe that human creatures are charged by God to be agents for the development of creation and the unfolding of culture, and to exercise stewardship in these tasks; and that the universe and all its creatures were created to bring glory to God.

I believe God has established a creation order which makes all artistic life possible and delightful—that is a blessing from God! Consequently, human creatures have much freedom within this order to cultivate a great variety of artistic phenomena.

FALL

I believe that sin is the human revolt against God and separation from God that produced distortions in the creation and evil in the human heart and in culture.

I believe that though sin is pervasive and comprehensive throughout the universe, it does not obliterate the goodness of God's created order.

I believe that sin has distorted our understanding of God's order for artistic phenomena and distorted the roles of art in human life; and that our sinful nature tends to devise and use art in ways which serve human-made gods rather than the true God.

REDEMPTION

I believe that God has provided reconciliation for the world through the atoning death and victorious resurrection of Jesus Christ; and that this reconciliation is applied to those who believe in Christ with true faith.  

I believe that just as the human fall into sin had cosmic results, salvation in Christ is equally cosmic—it means redemption of the whole lives of believers and, ultimately, of the entire universe.

I believe that artistic phenomena are included in this redemption, and that this makes possible a renewal in artistic life which again brings glory to God.

CONSUMMATION

I believe that though Christ's redemption was perfectly accomplished in his death and resurrection, it will not be realized totally in believers' lives and fulfilled for the entire creation until the appearance of a new heaven & earth in the life to come. Until that time, good and evil will cohabit together, and even now the creation "groans with eager expectation" for that final consummation.

I believe that the Kingdom of God is both now and coming, and that the Holy Spirit works sanctification in believers' lives who will be made glorious in that great Day to come when God will judge the living and the dead.

I believe that redeemed artistic life is already now a joyous foretaste of the greater glory of the new heaven & earth in which the entire universe and all creatures will confess "Jesus Christ is Lord!"

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This Christian world-view suggests the following thoughts, opinions, and beliefs for my consideration of music and other arts:

ART in HUMAN LIFE

The aesthetic dimension of reality is that aspect of life which is concerned with what is symbolic, allusive, art­ful, suggestion-rich, and nuanceful (or similar terms). This dimension of reality is one part of God's reliable and multi-dimensional creation order by which all life is bound. This aesthetic dimension of life has its own validity; therefore, other aspects of reality should not be reduced to aesthetic phenomena, nor should the aesthetic dimension be ignored or subsumed under some other facet of reality.

Human creatures, who are to be the crown of God's creation, are the subjects of aesthetic life, i.e., it is human beings who imagine, who make symbols, who act playfully, who produce and use art, and who perform rituals. Any thing, event, or other human creature may be the object of human aesthetic phenomena.

All human creatures are blessed with an aesthetic dimension to their lives, and all can learn to appreciate and make good use of various arts. In addition, some human creatures are gifted (innately and/or through nurture) by God with specific creative artistic abilities.

Human artistic life is intimately bound up with a variety of ways of knowing God and the creation: by faith, by common sense, by analysis, by intuition, and (most importantly for the arts) by artistic insight expressed as symbolism. Such artistic life is expressed historically in a rich array of styles and genres.

The arts have various functions in human life: some are primarily useful for active contemplation, others take their place in daily life in the form of folk arts & crafts; still others serve in specific institutions within culture B in commerce, fashion, architecture, entertainment, schools, and the church.

Human artistic creativity requires, to a high degree, both tech­nical competence and rich symbolic expression for an art product to achieve recognition as good art. Consequently, the lack of such competence and/or expressivity will result in poor art or even non-art.   But artists must also choose certain media within which they create art forms, and respect the God-given possibilities and limitations of specific media. In addition, in some art forms such as music, one may distinguish the quality of the original composition-as-such from the quality of its performance, and similarly one may judge the quality of any subsequent performance.

STYLE, GENRES, and HISTORY

The human practices and processes of art (music, painting, literature, etc.) are historically and culturally shaped by those who produce such works of art, and are similarly appreciated and used by human creatures who live in historically-rooted and culturally-rich contexts. Those whom we call the "great" artists are usually those who are leading culture formers or shapers in specific art forms. In the development of human cultures throughout history, various expressions are given to the realization of such arts, and it is this historically-situated and culturally-contextual phenomenon that we call "style."  

Thus we distinguish Roman architecture from Gothic architecture, Baroque cantatas from Zulu choral singing, Elizabethan drama from the modern "theatre of the absurd," and Inuit silkscreen prints from Impressionist paintings. And though there are profound differences between different art forms such as music and painting, there are likely to be significant similarities between the various art forms which emanate from the same historical period and cultural context. Thus it may be fruitful and even exhilarating to contemplate the stylistic features that bind together Michelangelo and Palestrina, or Monteverdi and Rembrandt, or Delacroix and Berlioz, or Picasso and Stravinsky.

On the other hand, "genre" in music and other arts deals with categories of form and function which, though certainly culturally contextualized, span across historical periods. Thus a Medieval troubadour song is stylistically different from a Schumann lied, but both belong to the genre of "song." Similarly the style features of a Baroque concerto grosso distinguish it from any piano concerto by Beethoven, but their commonality prevails as examples of the concerto genre. A church design by Christopher Wren is stylistically very different from one by Corbusier, but both are still church buildings. A Kwakiutl mask from British Columbia's west coast will exhibit style features which clearly distinguish it from a "false face" mask of the Mohawks in Ontario, but in form and function both belong to the genre of masks.

MUSIC and MUSICAL LIFE

Music is that medium of art in which elements of pitch, rhythm, texture, and form are artistically composed and performed; any distortion or absence of any of these essential elements produces poor music or non-music, for such distortion or absence is disobedient to God's creational design for music.

The artistic meaning of music is explicit in its own musical language. Though music is not a verbal language, "neighbourhoods" of musical meaning can be associated and approximated with verbal language which is circumscribed by some cultural limitations. Music that carries text may often bear more complicated meaning, for then the meaning of the text and the meaning of the music contribute together to the meaning of the entire work; sometimes that may even produce irony.

Musical life requires distinct modes of human participation: composing, performing, and appreciation. The continuity of any musical culture is greatly assisted by music teaching, technological developments for music production/dissemination, musicology & ethnomusicology, and music criticism.

It is within human freedom to develop a great variety of mus­ical styles to suit a great variety of functions in different cultures. This musical variety (whether tribal, folk, classical, or popular) is an enrichment of human life for which we must thank God. And as musical taste tends to solidify after the age of thirty, it is important to expose younger people to a large variety of musical styles and genre to enable them to explore the richness of music and enlarge their taste for music.

Musical works of any era or style have the potential for an ever-fresh presence in actual performance, thus later performances of music composed years ago may produce new appreciation and insight.  

The essence of musical life is found primarily in live music-making, for which video recordings, audio recordings, and scores (in that order!) are only approximations or weak substitutes.

The RELIGIOUS CONTEXT of MUSIC

Because all human beings are religious creatures at heart, we compose, perform, appreciate, and use music in ways that are ultimately religious, i.e., ways which serve God or a pseudo-god. Ditto for all human art forms. Thus all musical works and musical activities in their actual human contexts are not neutral but rather expressions of religious allegiance to God or to a human-made idol.

Musical phenomena are religiously shaped by their cultural contexts; thus a musical work or style may be related to the spirit of an era.   Music is not only influenced by culture, however, for it also has the potential to influence its audience and its culture for good or for evil.   Thus there is two-way traffic in the relationship between music activities and the "spirits of the age," requiring discernment.

Textbooks and colloquial speech call church music "sacred" and everything else "secular," but any examination of "secular" Minnesang or of "sacred" Christian contemporary music (to name just two examples) will quickly demonstrate the confusion that labels such as "sacred" and "secular" promote. That distinction is a misleading and unbiblical dualism which denies the rich diversity of musical styles and functions, which obscures the religious testimony inherent in all human life and in all musical phenomena, and which denies the biblical call for all of our lives to "be holy unto the Lord."

The Cultural Mandate (Genesis 1:28), the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20), the Fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 4:22-23), and similar themes in the Bible constitute the standards by which Christians should exercise discernment in their production and use of music and other arts—in all the rich array of styles and genres.

MUSIC HISTORY and MUSICOLOGY

The historical study of music affords a panorama of human crea­tures who make their musical life as they respond to the task of developing the creation. This history narrates and ex­plains the developments in the cultivation of music as these occur under the cultural power of significant music, musicians, and events B all of which may be related to larger cultural movements, spiritual forces, and religious direction or devotion.

Music history concentrates on the development of styles and genres and their reception, with a secondary focus on the relationship of these aspects to general cultural history. The histories of composers, musical institutions, and music technology (etc.) are often other concerns.

Music historians should be humble in the exercise of their craft: there are limited resources and witnesses to various historical musical phenomena; there are handicaps in talking about music in a verbal language; and certain biases develop in the very act of choosing which musical phenomena will be studied.

The positivistic paradigm in musicology emphasized score editing and structural analysis of a fairly limited canon of music. Various phenomenon in the latter half of the 20th century have contributed to a critique of this paradigm and to the study of new issues and other repertoires of music. New ventures in music criticism, music-culture studies, and analysis of popular music are welcome additions to any Christian thinking about music. However, the relativism which is so characteristic of post-Modern culture should not allow us to ignore the need for spiritual discernment in musical matters, as in all of life.

The following chart summarizes how the internal elements of music, its external functions in culture, and its historical style aspects are all related together within the complexities of religious worship of God or of human-made gods.

Select Bibliography

Begbie, Jeremy S. Voicing Creation's Praise. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991

Begbie, Jeremy S. Theology, Music and Time. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000

Best, Harold M. Music Through the Eyes of Faith. New York: Harper Collins, 1993

Blackwell, Albert L. The Sacred in Music. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1999

Brand, Hilary, & Adrienne Chaplin. Art & Soul, 2nd edition. Carlisle, UK: Piquant, 2001 (1999)

DeMol, Karen. Sound Stewardship, How Shall Christians Think about Music? Sioux Center, IA: Dordt College Press, 1999

Edgar, William. Taking Note of Music. London: SPCK, 1986

Johansson, Calvin M. Music & Ministry, A Biblical Counterpoint. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1984

Rookmaaker, Hans R. New Orleans Jazz, Mahalia Jackson and the Philosophy of Art. Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker, editor.   Carlisle, UK: Piquant, 2002

Seerveld, Calvin. Rainbows for a Fallen World. Toronto: Tuppence Press, 1980

Wolters, Albert M. Creation Regained. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985

Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Art in Action. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980

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